The Energy and Environment Program at the Baker Center strives to continue Senator Baker’s work in the areas of energy and environmental policy. The program examines how energy and environmental issues affect the quality of life for people around the world. Among the issues addressed by the program are energy consumption and conservation; nuclear energy; renewable energy; air and water pollution; and climate change. The center hopes to study the interaction of energy and the environment to develop economically sound policies that improve the quality of life of the world’s citizens. The center’s activities in energy and environmental policy programs have been strengthened by the establishment of key partnerships with other energy policy institutes, think tanks, professional societies, universities, national laboratories, and industries. For example, you can view the report of the EU-US Conference on Energy 2010-2012 – final report and view information on the Fall 2012 Base-load Electricity from Natural Gas and Nuclear Power in the linked pages. The partnership between the Baker Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, and the Tennessee Valley Authority is of particular importance in the program’s effort to develop energy and environmental policy.
The Baker Forum on Energy and Environmental Policy provides a forum for the UT community to share their research findings to a broad set of academics, researchers, and students from outside their own discipline, but who have a common interest in environmental and energy issues. We invite roughly six speakers each semester from fields such as ecology, economics, urban planning, atmospheric chemistry and sociology to present on occasional Thursdays at 3:30 pm in the Baker Center’s Toyota Auditorium. The Baker Forum is led by the following faculty:
- Paul Armsworth, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
- Jake LaRiviere, Economics
- Becky Jacobs, College of Law
- Chris Clark, Agricultural Economics
Spring 2013
| Date | Speaker | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| January 2013 | ||
| 24 | Karen Seto, Associate Professor of Urban Environment, Yale University | Rethinking Urbanization and Sustainability: Lessons from China and India |
| 31 | Douglas MacLean, Professor, Philosophy, University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill | Risk Analysis and the Ethics of Risk Distribution |
| February 2013 | ||
| 21 | George Crabtree, Senior Scientist, Distinguished Fellow and Associate Division Director in the Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory | Energy: The Next 50 Years |
| March 2013 | ||
| 14 | Zyg Platter, Professor, Law, Boston College | The Endangered Species Act, 40 Years On |
| April 2013 | ||
| TBA | Paulina Oliva, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara | Does the Effect of Pollution on Human Health Differ Between Developing and Developed Countries? |
Energy and Environment Forums are funded by TN-SCORE
Click on “Topic” of past speakers’ for a link to video of their talk.
Fall 2012
| Date | Speaker | |
|---|---|---|
| September 2012 | ||
| 21 | Energy Symposium 2012 | Baseload-load Energy from Natural Gas and Nuclear Power: The Role of Federal and State Policy |
| October 2012 | ||
| 04 | Baker Forum on Energy and the Environment: John Bell and Diane Mollenkopf | Sustainable Supply Chains |
| 18 | Baker Forum on Energy and the Environment: David Tilman | Food, Biofuels and the Environment: A Search for Sustainability |
| 25 | Baker Forum on Energy and the Environment: Pat McGinley | Excessive Regulation or Market Failure: Deconstructing the “War On Coal” |
Energy and Environment Forums are funded by TN-SCORE